


How Much For The Shoes?

by littlechinesedoll



Category: Kingsman (Movies)
Genre: Arthur!Harry, Eggsy as Guinevere, Guinevere!Eggsy, Harry Hart as Arthur, Kingsman Trainees, M/M, Original Character(s), POV Outsider
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-13
Updated: 2018-06-13
Packaged: 2019-05-21 18:34:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,874
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14920710
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/littlechinesedoll/pseuds/littlechinesedoll
Summary: There’s a badly dressed, short, blond teenager clinging to Arthur’s arm, looking around excitedly and asking him to buy him the overpriced shoes, a limited pair of Adidas, on display at a shoe boutique. It’s kind of gross, watching their boss parade around someone more than half his age.





	How Much For The Shoes?

**Author's Note:**

> for fyeahhartwin on tumblr :)

There’s a badly dressed, short, blond teenager clinging to Arthur’s arm, looking around excitedly and asking him to buy him the overpriced shoes, a limited pair of Adidas, on display at a shoe boutique. It’s kind of gross, watching their boss parade around someone more than half his age.

“Can I have that one, please?” they hear the boy through their glasses. He’s making himself sound childish and petty. “Please? I promise not to get anything below a B!”

They sip on their coffees and frappes and dig into their pastries as they watch Arthur give a besotted look at the delighted boy when he asks the saleslady to let the pretty little tart try out the shoes.

Holy shit, the kid is still studying? And Arthur is what? Like 55?

“Will you please let him try out that one?” Arthur says. His voice is light and calm. They’ve never heard him speak like that.

“Of course, sir,” says the saleslady, taking the pair of shoes from the display.

The lad decides to call him Blondie. He watches together with his two remaining fellow Kingsman trainees who’re on location dressed as civilians, sitting at a nearby café, assigned to observe Arthur as he tries to lure a mark out of the large spa next to the shoe boutique. It’s not kind of gross, now. It’s actually gross now that they know how old the boy is. He’s an actual _boy_. Jesus.

According to the dossier they received, William Schultz, runs quite the large drug ring and is involved in human trafficking. Schultz also owns the shoe boutique but is a legitimate business run by a family member and doesn’t make nearly enough money to launder what they make from the drugs. He favors shipping out young, pretty, blonds and has no gender preferences. The information leaves a disgusting taste in the trainees’ mouth, definitely much worse than pretending to be a sugar daddy to a potential kidnapping victim.

Arthur hands his credit card to the cashier, who’s on the phone, and Blondie doesn’t bother removing the new shoes and gets up to give Arthur a hug, then tiptoes to kiss their employer on the cheek.

“Thank you, thank you!” Blondie says giddily, unable to contain the joy from his short, but stocky frame.

Arthur seems pleased and smiles as the tart dances around the shop wearing his new shoes. “You’re welcome, darling,”

The lad thinks Arthur is a pretty damn good actor. He’s not sure if he can do what Arthur is doing for the sake of the job. They’re not even sure if Blondie is part of Kingsman, and he doesn’t seem like he is. Looks like some kid off the estates wearing knockoff clothes trying to look impressive. Could be a random rentboy Arthur found and paid. Or he could probably be a real sugar baby, going online looking for gullible, good looking, older men like Arthur. Though Arthur doesn’t seem like the type of person, especially since he’s the head of an organization like Kingsman. He’s not dumb enough to engage in…lascivious acts concerning much, much younger men.

And it’s not like he’s not handsome enough or fit enough to attract said much, much younger men. He’d be lying if he said he wasn’t floored when he saw Arthur the first time. He was expecting a bald, overweight, classist mess, not this tall, fit, handsome bloke who exuded grace, held his authority with ease, and quite literally, commanded respect from everyone in the room. And bloody hell did the Kingsman suit look like second skin on him.

The saleswoman hands Blondie the paper bag with the box that contains his old shoes, and he and Arthur make their way out of the shop. Arthur and Blondie stand by the shop, with Arthur’s hand around the boy’s waist, and Blondie looks up at Arthur and they have conversation. The boy points to an establishment across the street, right next to the café the trainees have planted themselves in.

“Do you really think that this Schultz guy will fall for this trap? Seems unlikely,” whispers one trainee as he bites into a fruit Danish.

“Think again,” the lad says, when none other than the mark steps out of the spa to light a cigarette, then watches Arthur and his tart.

“Can we have burritos?” asks Blondie.

Arthur doesn’t look too inclined to enter the fast food chain. “You know I don’t like it when you eat nothing but that unhealthy rubbish, love,”

But then the boy points to the spa. “Then how about we have an us day?” he grins up at Arthur, leaning against the spy’s tall, built frame. “A massage, a little dip, buffet of food?”

“Hm,” Arthur hums pensively, “It does sound rather tempting,”

Schultz approaches Arthur. “I can’t help but overhear your interest in the spa. Would a discount gift cheque help you decide?” he grins and waves a small booklet in the air.

“Oh, please!” Blondie pouts at Arthur. “Please? We haven’t had a spa day yet!”

“Darling, we have somewhere to be tonight,” Arthur lightly admonishes. “We appreciate the offer,” he declines the gift cheques.

“Nonsense!” chirps Schultz, “Take the booklet. Come back some other day,” he hands Blondie, who’s reaching for the booklet, the gift cheques, and Arthur thanks the man with a smile and a firm handshake, and a squeeze to his shoulder.

The lad catches the move. Arthur’s planted the bug.

“Thank you, thank you. That’s very kind of you, mister…?”

“Schultz. I own the spa,”

“Thank you, Mr. Schultz,” says Arthur again.

“Look they’ve got a hot tub and everything!” Blondie browses through the booklet, the naughty grin on his face becoming larger and larger. He winks up at Arthur.

“We’ll have to make full use of that hot tub then, but some other time,” says Arthur and it pretty much sends a shiver down the lad’s spine.

“Thanks!” says Blondie, pleased with the freebies.

“We’ll have to take our leave now, sir. Thank you very much,”

“You’re welcome. Drop by soon!” says Schultz, then goes back into the spa.

Blondie waves as Schultz walks away, and his smile turns into a petulant frown when a Kingsman cab pulls up by the sidewalk. “Aww, your cab’s here. But I still want to go eat,”

“Tonight, darling, I promise,” Arthur presses a kiss to Blondie’s forehead. “I know you’re not done shopping, and I’m sorry I can’t go with you. I have work piled up,”

“Fine. Tonight,” says Blondie.

Arthur gets in the cab, and Blondie drops the gift cheques into the shopping bag as he walks in the same direction as the cab.

Their glasses beep. A message from Merlin appears on the lenses. They’re being summoned to the shop to continue their lessons on actual tailoring, and that their activity they just had will be discussed in class tomorrow morning with Lancelot. They finish up their food and hail a regular cab back to Savile Row.

* * *

 

It’s about a few hours later after their shift at Kingsman, when they’re right outside the shop eating takeaway from nearby, when they see Blondie walking down the sidewalk, still holding the shopping bag plus some others, still wearing the loud, yellow and black jacket, and the Adidas shoes Arthur had gotten him from earlier that day. It also looks like he’d done additional shopping like they heard Arthur say. 

One trainee bumps the lad with his elbow. “Hey, Ron, look,”

Ron, the lad from earlier, looks down the lane. “It’s Blondie,” he says.

“Hey, Edmund, I’ll pay you ten quid if you ask him how much Arthur pays for him,”

“Fuck off, Simon,” Edmund frowns.

“Do you think he’s a good fuck?” says Simon.

Blondie’s about to go up the stairs to enter Kingsman when Ron speaks. “How much?”

Blondie stops and turns to them. “I’m sorry?” Blondie has the audacity to look confused.

“How much?” Simon repeats.

“For what?” Blondie frowns.

“The shoes,” Simon says sarcastically. “No, you idiot. How much did your sugar daddy pay for you?”

Blondie stares at them, then smiles. “Oh, you can’t even begin to imagine, love,”

“Really?” says Ron, eyeing Blondie from head to toe. “You don’t look like it,”

Blondie shrugs.

The door opens. It’s Andrew, their head tailor. “Good evening, sir,” he says to Blondie before turning to them. “Lads. Come inside, please,”

Blondie steps aside to let the lads in, then enters after them. He sets the shopping bags down on one of the sofas, peels off the jacket and throws it on top of the bags before taking a seat. The three boys sit on the opposite sofa, again, eyeing Blondie as he scrolls through his phone.

“Lads, the bullet has arrived and will leave in twenty minutes,” Andrew tells them before going back behind the counter.

“Why are you even here?” Edmund asks for the sake of curiosity.

“My sugar daddy works here,” Blondie answers plainly. He winks at Andrew, who’s trying to hide a smile, then turns back to his phone. “He owns the shop,”

Ron thinks Blondie’s not wrong, but he’s not right either. Arthur does work here at Kingsman, and he basically looks like the owner but he isn’t.

“Your sugar daddy can’t afford to get you a suit from his own shop?” snorts Simon.

Blondie shrugs, still scrolling through his phone. “I don’t think I’ll look good in all this posh stuff anyway,”

“And knockoff clothes do?”

“This is real Jeremy Scott, I’ll have you know,” says Blondie. “And he bought it for me because I was a good boy,”

Edmund tries not to snicker, and Ron and Simon also look like they’re going to be sick.

Merlin emerges from the fitting room, holding his trusty tablet. The lads rush to stand up, but Merlin holds up a hand. “At ease,” he nods to Blondie, who pockets his phone. “Ah, there you are. I see you haven’t been abducted yet. Lads, I believe this is the first time you’ve met,”

“Met who?” asks Simon, looking up at Merlin as they settle back into the sofa.

“Our Queen,” says Merlin. “Simon, Edmund, Ronald, meet Agent Guinevere, formerly Galahad. He was undercover with Arthur earlier today, as you saw,” Merlin takes a few long strides over to Guinevere and hands over the clipboard with a stylus. “Sign here, if you would,”

“Hi,” Guinevere winks at them, smiling smugly as he signs off a digital document. “Gwen’s just fine, though Merlin doesn’t like hearing anyone shorten my name,”  

Ron pales as he struggles to swallow the lump in his throat. His classmates sound like they’ve stopped breathing. They know Guinevere is enjoying this because he’s smiling, and Ron can’t believe all he just accused one of the heads of their organization of being a prostitute.

They accused the legendary Young Galahad of being a whore. Galahad who saved the world twice in succession, together with his former mentor, Galahad Senior who’d been kinged right after the events of Golden Circle.

“I am of legal age and hadn’t had to work for a B for quite a few years now, actually, contrary to what you heard earlier this morning. Though I am flattered you think I’m that young,”

And he wasn’t just one of the heads, he was Arthur’s husband. The only time Kingsman ever had a queen was when Arthur had a partner.

“Fuck,” Ron mutters.

“You shall address Agent Guinevere as sir or with his full name, and nothing else,” says Merlin.

“Guv,” Guinevere grins. “They actually thought I was Arthur’s sugar baby,”

“You aren’t?” Merlin raises a brow.

“I am,” Guinevere shrugs. “And I do love it when he buys me things I want. Is he in?” he asks when he turns to Andrew.

“He’s is in the dining room, sir,” answers Andrew. “Fitting room three will be ready for you in a moment,”

Guinevere turns to Andrew to say thanks, and sees Gawain come down the stairs.

“Hey, Gwen!” the agent breaks into a smile, ignoring the audible sigh and shake of the head Merlin gives upon hearing the nickname. “Welcome back to the field!”

Guinevere stands up and Gawain pulls him into a side hug. “Good to be back, even if it means I can only get to stand there and look pretty,”

“If there’s something you’re good at, it’s stand there and look pretty,” Gawain turns to the trainees. “Hey, kid,” he greets one of them. 

“Good evening, sir,” Simon says under his breath.

“This is your candidate?”

“Yes. This is Simon. I trust he made a good impression?”

Guinevere chuckled. “Oh, he did. All of them did. It was _adorable_. You should have seen it,”

Ron hopes none of the details of today ever get to their mentors. Guinevere seems sweet but Ron knows enough that sometimes, the sweet ones are the most venomous.

“It didn’t go well, did it?” Gawain asks Simon, who winces.

“As Guinevere himself put it, it was _adorable_ ,” Merlin says as he makes his way past Gawain and toward the stairs, up to go fetch Arthur.

Two agents greet Merlin on their way down, Percival and Leon.

The trainees listen as the senior agents banter around for the next few moments, until Elyan, a junior tailor but a successful agent in his own right, interrupts the conversation to ask Guinevere to step into fitting room three. Ron doesn’t know how this night can get any worse.

“I hope you three take this as a life lesson,” says Gawain, suddenly finding the entire thing amusing. “You should get on the bullet as soon as Arthur sends you off. He’ll be coming down soon,”

“Where will you be going?” asks Simon. They always did wonder what agents did after missions and during their downtime.

“I’m getting some dinner, then go home and sleep for two days. Not as exciting as you might think,”

They watch Gawain, Percival, and Leon leave, and they’re left to the silence of Andrew’s bookkeeping while they wait for Arthur to come down and dismiss them so they can board the bullet and wait for it to depart. They sit in silence for a long while before Simon speaks.

“How badly do you think this will reflect on how they’ll prune us?” asks Simon.

“On _us_?” Edmund says incredulously. “What about on _you_ two? You’re the one who wanted to ask how much the fuckin’ _shoes_ were!” he hissed. “You were the ones assuming things! And you don’t even _like_ Adidas!”

“I’ll let you boys know when my credit card bill arrives,”

All three young men get to their feet. “Good evening, sir,” they chorus.

Arthur nods to let them know they can ease. “I’m afraid I have no idea how much the shoes were earlier today. He does love his Adidas and Nike,” Arthur adjusts his cuffs. That’s when Ron notices the silver band on his left ring finger. “If you’re waiting to be dismissed, you can go,”

They notice he’s dressed in a different suit from usual navy, pinstriped one. It was a black, British cut, double breasted evening suit with satin peak lapels and a black bowtie. Arthur must be on his way to something important to be dressed so formally.

“Uh…” Ron tries to swallow the lump in his throat. “No need, sir. We were just wondering. We’ll just Google that later,”

Arthur’s about to reply but stops when he hears the door to fitting room three opens. Guinevere steps out, dressed to the nines and hair slicked back.

“What do you think? Too much?”

Guinevere is wearing an evening suit like Arthur, but it’s a bright orange, single breasted one button jacket with black satin peak lapels and a black bowtie, paired with black dress pants. And then he has a silver band on his left ring finger that wasn’t there before.

Orange isn’t exactly a color Ron would imagine in an evening suit but Guinevere just looks so unbelievably and breathtakingly good in it. Who knew orange would look so good? Orange _velvet_.

Arthur’s steely face melts into a soft gaze, and that smile he had when they watched him back in the shoe boutique earlier that day graces his face. “You look absolutely lovely, darling,”

Guinevere preens at the pet name. and Ron realizes that shit, nothing they saw earlier was an act, and Arthur is actually, literally, arse over tits in freaking love with Guinevere. And they see that Guinevere is the same with Arthur when he again, like earlier today, presses a quick kiss to Arthur’s cheek.

Arthur returns to being well, Arthur, and steels himself as he offers his arm to his Guinevere, who eagerly takes it. “Have a good evening, boys,” he says before leading their queen out of the shop.

“Bye!” Guinevere waves at them as they leave.

When the door closes, the three rush to the windows like gossiping housewives to watch them enter the cab waiting outside.

“It’s their third anniversary,” says Andrew helpfully.

“I don’t know about you two, but Guinevere hit the jackpot,” says Edmund as they make their way down to the bullet.

Simon groans. Ron shrugs. Edmund definitely isn’t wrong.


End file.
